The Xplor View - October 2008 - (Page 4)

to leverage this opportunity? Do you know how to turn available white space into additional revenue? The key to transforming data and transactional documents into highly effective TransPromo communications—and transforming a traditional print-to-mail operation into a flexible, highly productive operation is to streamline and automate three critical areas: • Variable data design—a system that makes it simple and effective to compose one-to-one communications that combine a centralized database, business logic, and automated print stream creation • Output management—a document output management system that lets you modify and redirect print streams on the fly without disrupting underlying systems or operations • File-based processing—this is key. With filebased processing, you have the controls necessary to ensure that the right information is sent to the right customer at the right time, and to form the basis for comprehensive integrity capabilities The resulting benefits can be well worth the effort. Adding colour variable data messaging to statements and invoices can help increase revenues by leveraging up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, transform a cost-based model into a revenuegenerating model, make the most of existing opt-in customer relationships, generating revenues that can be as much as five times more profitable. For these operations, the healing salve may be an intelligent print control and management solution that enables mailers to centralize operational and site management; improve throughput, productivity, and job integrity; decrease costs; and optimize asset utilization. There are many factors driving the need for centralized print management and control. Among them are the convergence of print streams, platforms, and PDLs, along with offset and digital production, and transactional and promotional documents. Finally, maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements—HIPAA and Sarbanes Oxley, for example—means ensuring document integrity and providing audit trails and reports. Print operations poised to benefit from a centralized print control and management solution are the ones that must support converging transactional and POD requirements, that struggle with asset utilization, where process inefficiencies disrupt the ability to meet service level agreements (SLAs) and those for whom resource management is a recurring problem. One of the best ways to resolve these issues is utilisation of a printing control and management solution that centralizes control of print and electronic output processes—transforming a time-consuming, resource-intensive manual construct into an automated model that eliminates production bottlenecks, minimizes the risk of errors, and produces and delivers customer-facing communications with better quality and a higher level of integrity. An effective print control and management solution consolidates input from multiple platforms and applications, providing a single point of control for the entire mailstream from data creation, print job acquisition, and input through printing and mailing. It enables any-to-any print stream transformation and pass-through, document re-engineering and processing, end-to-end tracking and reporting, and the ability to deliver output across multiple channels—including production and network printers, email, and the web. It also enables print-tomailers to add value to documents, transforming legacy documents into TransPromo documents that grow revenues. As for choosing the right solution, it is all about an open, vendor-independent architecture that supports any-to-any output, provides a central point of control to track and manage jobs across the enterprise, and intelligent file-based processing. Other components to look for include support for multiple applications, data streams, and black-and-white and colour cutsheet and continuous feed devices from multiple vendors. Given the growing demand for TransPromo documents, support for colour is a must, as are realtime document re-engineering, central operational data collection, seamless document delivery across multiple channels, and improved management of finishing systems. As with a good TransPromo solution, an open, modular, scalable print control and management system's benefits far outweigh the cost or time required for implementation. A good solution can provide a flexible framework for bridging multiple proprietary workflows; for simplifying, streamlining, and re-engineering jobs and workflows; for maximizing throughput; and tracking and managing jobs, devices, and resources. Print operations can improve asset utilization by transparently routing jobs to available printers and capturing accounting data. They can integrate incompatible devices and platforms, eliminate duplicate workflows, and optimize use of equipment, staff, and capacity. Best of all, they will have real-time access to the critical information they need—production intelligence, if you will—to make rapid, but sound business decisions and tools to produce and manage complex, variable documents with high quality, in multiple formats, using legacy and new platforms. Seizing control with centralized output management The third area of focus in taming the print-to-mail workflow is one that makes a lot of sense for much of today's mail operations. The simple reason is that despite impressive advances in technology, too many print operations spend much of their time and resources attempting to make sense of a bewildering mix of print streams, platforms, and applications. This is particularly true of production environments with clusters of isolated point solutions and multiple complex workflows. In conclusion Certainly there are more ways to tame the unruliest of print-to-mail operations. But these three— implementing intelligent barcodes to improve mail piece tracking, TransPromo and colour enablement technologies to connect mailers with the most definitive opportunities on the print-to-mail landscape, and centralized print control and management—are surely among the most critical. To learn more about optimising your mailstream with production intelligence, visit www.emtex.com Nick Khatri Marketing Manager Pitney Bowes Emtex® Software nkhatri@emtex.com “Print operations can improve asset utilization by transparently routing jobs to available printers and capturing accounting data.” 4 The VIEW Journal Xplor European Edition Issue 6 October 2008 http://www.emtex.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Xplor View - October 2008

The Xplor View -� October 2008 Contents TPE Master Class: Three Ways to Tame your Print-to-Mail Workflow Right Now Mission Impossible: Embracing Environmental Concerns TPE Master Class: Implementing a Lean Working Environment Improving Business Processes Yields Award-Winning Business Performance How Do� You Effectively Win New Business Writing a Marketing Plan to Win New Printing Clients How Buying Strategies Have Affected How the Industry Sells Let's Talk About Integrated Customer Communications Management:�Transpromo...It Takes a Village! Knowledge Management Part 3 XDU: Leading the Education Revolution Kodak plus Xplor equals XDU Around the World Xplor Europe News:�Short News Items for the Xplor UK�Programme and Europe News

The Xplor View - October 2008

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